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King-278
This article contains unmarked spoilers to Act 3 of Rise of the Spartans. "Without the color, I couldn't tell where I belonged... so I felt I belonged everywhere. But that'll never be true." King-278 was a prestigious graduate of the SPARTAN Academy on Reach, the leader of his own Spartan squad, and a close friend and the roommate of David 617 ("Nightflash"). Initially defined by an adherence to the Academy's system, King's developing uncertainties would help to shape Nightflash's insurgency against it. King is portrayed by Brandon Coe. History SPARTAN Academy At the time of his first appearance, King was a highly skilled and respected Second Generation Squad Leader, commanding Mythic-071 and Roxanne. Although only Tier Three, King was the fourth highest-placed cadet in the Spartan Academy. While regularly clashing with Nightflash's personality, King stopped to watch Nightflash's assignment to a squad, an event that began to spark greater tensions between the two. As a result of Nightflash's unorthodox behavior, the Academy Actuarian pit his squad against King's in a surprise combat challenge. Throughout the challenge, both squads were slowly whittled down to their respective leaders, resulting in a fierce clash between them that ended with Nightflash eliminated. A brief scuffle between Mythic and Romero-024 ("Brass") followed as an indirect result of King dismissing Nightflash's concession. King's attempt to call Mythic off fell on deaf ears, and consequently, Mythic, Brass, Nightflash, and Clyde-213 ("Swift") were stunned by security droids. The effects of the challenge, namely the ensuing scuffle, attracted the attention of CEO Blake Valentine of Trident Industries to Nightflash. Consequently, Valentine's influence encouraged Nightflash to become more independent from the Academy's system. This led to greater differences between the philosophies of King and Nightflash, although the former was encouraging of the latter's quest to reach Tier One. King first began to realize the manipulation that the cadets of the Academy were privy to after repeatedly failing to complete a contact challenge's Gold-Level difficulty. Upon being offered advice by Nightflash, King asked how the former's squad had collected the challenge's seven checkpoints within the time limit. After a moment of stunned silence, Nightflash answered that there had only been six checkpoints. In a struggle to return to the path that the Academy had laid out for King, he complied with the orders of the Actuarian and challenged Nightflash to murder a staff member. Upon Nightflash's refusal, King himself carried out the act and curtly left. The very next day, however, Nightflash found his roommate quietly sitting in a withdrawn room - coincidentally, where both had gone to avoid confrontation with each other. Having thought over his actions, King regretfully noted that the Actuarian had not given him a choice and that one of the two would have had to kill the janitor. Resolved not to do such a thing again, King concluded the Spartans' true enemy was the Actuarian, rather than whatever target he decided to point them to. Nightflash's Arrest King's admission to Nightflash would become a factor in the latter's murder of the Actuarian soon after, a fact which was not lost on King. Although unable to bring himself to speak with Nightflash before his arrest by the Office of Naval Intelligence, King still cared for Nightflash and felt that his actions were the cause of the entire incident. Soon before Nightflash's subsequent release in August of 2552, King was approached in the reformed Spartan Academy by Blake Valentine. After King agreed to hold onto Trident Industries' prototype SPARTAN Laser, a gift from Valentine to Nightflash, the two engaged in a conversation about Nightflash's fate. Valentine eventually departed, but not before King promised to call him once Nightflash was released. Fall of Reach When Nightflash was released as part of ONI's desperation to have as many Spartans as possible on the frontlines, he and King conversed one final time before the former's departure. It was then that the two said their final goodbyes, and that King admitted that he saw himself as the reason for Nightflash's actions. When his suspicions were partially confirmed by Nightflash, King also confessed that he was going to miss him, despite an attempt to make his goodbye sound more professional. Here, King also told Nightflash about a dream that he had had during the latter's absence - one in which Spartans of the Academy were no longer divided by their Tiers and truly belonged with each other. He quickly added that he doubted it would ever come true, though was willing to admit to himself that he wished to return to his homeworld of Earth - a wish that he had apparently denied himself for years. Around the same time that Nightflash was assigned to lead SPARTAN Dispatch Unit Kilo, King and his squad were elevated to full Spartan status and assigned as the primary line of defense for the Academy. Despite an initially successful fight against an invading Covenant army, King watched Mythic and Roxanne be murdered by Elites right before his eyes and was heavily injured by a needle round from a Minor. King was dismissed by the vanguard of the Sangheili force due to his injuries and was unable to stop them from marching on the Academy, destroying what remained of its garrison, and slaughtering the cadets. In his final moments, unaware of a Sangheili Field Marshal stalking him, King dreamt that he had returned to Earth even after being impaled and killed. Personality :"No... ''no. There is no 'luck'. I win or I lose: I was adequate or not. I can't break the system."'' At times, King comes off as rather harsh and abrasive, whether to Nightflash or even his own team members. Other times, however, King is revealed to genuinely care about Nightflash. Despite an initial sense of arrogance towards his own skills as a Spartan, King became significantly more humble by the time of the Fall of Reach and even admonished Roxanne for overestimating their squad's abilities. After murdering a staff member on the Actuarian's orders, King came to realize what the Academy was doing to its cadets and was horrified with what he had done. This eventually culminates in a dream during which the Spartans of the Academy were not separated from each other by the colors of their Tier - an idea later used by Nightflash during the Battle of Halo to respect his fallen friend. Trivia *Pat, another character voiced by Brandon Coe in MIK3 WB's The Unsociables, can be seen watching one of the televised Academy challenges in which King is participating during Act 3 of Rise of the Spartans. *King is indirectly mentioned during Act 4 of Rise of the Spartans as Nightflash's inspiration to outfit the garrison of the UNSC Midsummer Night in green armor. The removal of the troopers' and Spartans' armor colors are the manifestation of King's dream in which the Spartans were no longer divided by Tier, and Nightflash's promise to break the system for him. **Additionally, the track during this scene is "Promise" from Thomas Bergersen's album Illusions. *Before the Fall of the SPARTAN Academy, King quotes Luke Skywalker word-for-word to a prideful Roxanne: "Your overconfidence is your weakness." Category:UNSC Category:SPARTAN Category:Squad Leader Category:MIA